Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

heh. surfing around out of boredome and procrastination, i came across this quote, which was quoted on a blog but that blog didn’t link to where this quote was first posted.

it’s killing me that apparently, the only way to see exploitation is to see it in its most vulgar form and happening to worthy victims. except that exploitation is a process that happens to web developers working in manhattan for $130k/year also.

i always wonder why privileged people living in the u.s., no matter whether they are white, straight males or from multiply oppressed subject positions, are so uncomfortable with knowing that? what is so scary about that? methinks it’s because people in the u.s., no matter how enlightened they are, informed by their multiply oppressed subject positions, still want to believe they are masters of their fate, the ones in control of why they become who they become, responsible for their successes in life, truly deserving.

or maybe it’s a desire to see it, as the author below sees it, as a situation in which individuals in the u.s. are the special beneficiaries of the exploitation of others — because capitalist exploitation only happens over there, to people in developing countries. because, of course, no one in the u.s. could possibly be exploited, except for maybe walmart workers? factory workers? mine workers? dunno, and certainly, we couldn’t fathom the concept of exploitation as one that recognizes that software developers making 130k in manhattan are exploited — and NO not because the cost of living is high.

lifestyle? honestly. capitalism and fighting it is all about changes in one’s consumption “lifestyle”. seriously. makes me want to stab myself in the eyes with a rusty jack knife.

marx, he was soooo all about lifestyle politics. women are dying? so are men! a woman is dying somewhere to support your lifestyle?

are we kidding? no. you are dying to support your lifestyle and the minute you finally get that is the minute you realize that it’s not just about ‘lifestyle’ or just about consumption at all. it’s about LABOR. bloody fucking labor. all of it is dead labor. all of it. capitalism kills you every hour you work

the pockets of capital are lined with the dead bodies of ALL labor, not just, uh, deserving labor. the minute you get that and realize that your exploitation is no better or worse than the exploitation of someone in a “developing” country is the minute you realize you are united and that it’s not just about them over there, and feeling guilty and ashamed about the way your lifestyle is made possible by their labor and endeavoring to do something oooo radical about it so that, what?, you can stop feeling ashamed? or so that you can just run around and make sure everyone feels ashamed and guilty too?

whatever… fucking ridiculous lifestyle politics. whatever. ahhh well. it helps me remember why bloglandia was so crazy-inducing:

Well hot damn- an anti-capitalist conversation in a feminist space. You’ve renewed my hope in bloga(d)ramaland.

I’m 48 hours away from re-entering the border of the US after spending 2 months in the Philippines and I’m scared shitless to talk about capitalism because the basic fundamental truth is that most US citizens are caught in the web of capitalism with no serious alternative in lifestyle unless you go -gasp - radical an actually mind/give a damn about your human consumption.

I recently was in an economics class learning about capitalism from outside the country- my first formal educational experience concerning capitalism - and nearly everyone violently wrestled with how to absorb the fundamental stone that capitalism rests on the concept of pure exploitation. Our business practices, jobs, and consumeristic mentalities are steel pro-exploitative rods thrust into the backbone of “developing” countries. Try and swallow that one. I’m still clearing my throat on that one.

On an extremely basic level, few people can acknowledge and accept that our lifestyle as US citizens rests on the throats of womyn and girls of color all over the world who are DYING. They’re not just sick and denied benefits, they’re not just developing asthma from the textile factories, they’re not just being denied every kind of justice while they’re alive. They’re dying.

We’ve built up our US-centric feminism so high that we can’t even see over our own fucking walls anymore. I’m coming back over the wall and all I can say is our consumption, our pathetic lazy asses who think boycotting Walmart is enough, is anti-feminist. Call me crazy, but operating within a capitalistic frame work as a feminist, as a nation, means that a womyn somewhere is dying from our system.

That, to me, remains unacceptable.